ILYA SOMIN is Professor of Law at George Mason University. His research focuses on constitutional law, property law, and the study of popular political participation and its implications for constitutional democracy. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom (Oxford University Press, 2020), Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter (Stanford University Press, 2nd edition, 2016), and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London and the Limits of Eminent Domain (University of Chicago Press, 2015, rev. paperback ed., 2016), coauthor of A Conspiracy Against Obamacare: The Volokh Conspiracy and the Health Care Case (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and co-editor of Eminent Domain: A Comparative Perspective (Cambridge University Press, 2017).
Somin's work has appeared in numerous scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, Northwestern University Law Review, Georgetown Law Journal, Critical Review, and others. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Los Angeles Times, the New York Times Room for Debate website, USA Today, Newark Star Ledger, US News and World Report, Politico, South China Morning Post, Legal Times, National Law Journal and Reason. He has been quoted or interviewed by the New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, and the Voice of America, among other media. Somin writes regularly for the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, affiliated with Reason.
He has served as visiting professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Somin has also been a visiting professor at the University of Hamburg, Germany, Zhengzhou University in China, and the University of Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Before joining the faculty at George Mason, he was the John M. Olin Fellow in Law at Northwestern University Law School in 2002-2003. In 2001-2002, he clerked for the Hon. Judge Jerry E. Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Professor Somin earned his B.A., Summa Cum Laude, at Amherst College, M.A. in Political Science from Harvard University, and J.D. from Yale Law School.
Somin was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States with his parents when he was six years old. His interests include juggling, science fiction and fantasy literature, and sports history.
